I've never done anything with leather before, but my daughter would not let me crochet a pirate hat for her. I found instructions for a Jack Sparrow tricorn hat on Livejournal and cut the cost by using a ruined leather jacket instead of the new leather called for. Because I was using a jacket, there are a few seams in places where they shouldn't be and I had to back the leather with fabric so it wasn't quite so floppy - but it turned out pretty well - and it's free. The used leather was also easier to work with - I could use my sewing machine on it. As a bonus, I'm making the remainder of the jacket into a buccaneer vest to add to her costume.

Aargh - I would add the link to the original instructions, but I can't find it again.

I'm finding that I really like experimenting with novelty yarn - I picked up 2 rubbermaid totes with about 50 skeins each of all kinds of stuff (some quite pricey) for only $10. It's fun combining colors and types of yarn - plus something with simple stitches looks more high-end.

The beret is a combination of a yarn that was 3 colors/widths of chenille and rust-brown vintage 2-ply wool. It is the Chunky Beret from Melody Griffith's So Simple Crochet. I added some vintage buttons

The second is a super cozy scarf made from a brown/taupe/white ribbon yarn that has lengths of cotton string attached and a mixed brown chenille. Half-double crochet along the length of the chain with both yarns, 2 rows of single crochet (down & back up) with just the chenille and repeat.

Here's mine -- thanks for the pattern - my daughter wears it all the time. So cute - reminds me of The Sneetches. I had a bit of trouble with the star and had to use an alternate technique, but that's probably just me, not the pattern. It's not in the pic, but the band is coral too. I'm planning to try the heart one as well.

I haven't posted in a while, because it seems like I'm obsessively crocheting. Focus seems to be my problem - I currently have 4 partially finished projects scattered around the house. Here are a few of the things I've made in the past few weeks - trying to find things to make with this ton of novelty yarns I picked up at a yard sale.

The cowls each use one skein of Moda Dea Frivolous and a partial skein of regular wool - stitched together. They are stitched in the round using an N hook: *round of single crochet, round of triple crochet" repeat 2 more times, end with round of single crochet. Attach a large button to the upper edge to adjust the fit - using the triple crochet as a button hole.

This is the kitty hat from Linda Kopp's Cool Crochet Hats in bulky alpaca-blend wool and the next is a girl's waffle-weave cap from the same book in a ribbon yarn - I made-up the button-on heart decoration (side view).

The last is the cowl that was in this month's Crochet Today in orange Homespun -- I added a drawstring with leaf-ends top and bottom - so you can push it back, adjust the strings and it becomes a slouchy hat.

Here are a couple of little amigurumis that I made for my Twitter-fiend daughter - a Tweet Bird and a Fail Whale. I decided to give the whale a little spout of water. Not too happy with his mouth though.

This is my first attempt at fusing plastic grocery bags -- I think I had too many layers and the setting up too high at first - the plastic shrunk up like shrinky-dinks and is really wrinkled. The plastic I used for the covered button was done on a lower setting and is only about 4 layers and was quite smooth. I guess it takes a little experimentation to come up with the perfect layers/setting combination.

At any rate - it came out fairly well - I even fused the seams. Much better than the tattered paper envelope I was using for my coupons

I'm at the bottom of the food chain computer-wise at our house -- my trusty half-ball base Mac loads super slow, so I've taken to keeping some orphan yarn and a hook at my desk so I can crochet while waiting for iPhoto or GarageSale to load, etc. Here's a couple of things I've been able to finish -- a card-holder keychain and tasseled lariat necklace/scarf thingy.

The button on the cardholder is a covered button made with a bit of a vintage necktie

The cord on the lariat is a simple chain that I slipstitched back along a couple of times.

I found a terrific booth at a local flea market that sells mill-ends of really nice mostly multi-strand yarns that are wool/cotton/acrylic blends for from $1 to $2 per skein and huge bags of mixed skeins for $4 each. Yesterday I got 2 of the mixed bags (each with about 12 skeins), a bag with 6 skeins and a cone of black merino lace-weight yarn, 2 more skeins of lace weight, and a couple other skeins of merino all for $17.

I'm just having a little trouble coming up with projects for the multi-strand yarn - in most cases I only have 1, but up to three 100-150 yd skeins in each color. So I'm just playing around with some scarves to see what type of stitch shows off the yarn best. Here's a close-up of one of the multi-strands - Any ideas?

I went from one extreme to the other with my latest projects - from a scarflette that just fits around my neck to a scarf so big I can also use it as a wrap. The size of each was just due to the amount of yarn I had - one mini skein of multi-strand purple and three small skeins of a gorgeous merino wool blend for the wrap.

The scarflette is just a double shell stitch done with a J hook. The large scarf is a mesh stitch with attached ribbing at the ends.

I lucked into tons of high-quality yarn for a mere 50 cents a skein a few weeks ago at my local Goodwill -- Alpaca, merino, wool blends, cottons and some other unusual yarns - including 2 skeins of recycled sari yarn (I walked out with more than 30 skeins). I'm still learning, so I started off with this bright yellow cotton from Greece. It's an adaptation of a Queen Anne pattern I found on Ravelry - I just made the part at the neck a bit plainer with a picot edge.

The sari yarn was a bit difficult to work with -- I meant to make a bag, but wound up with a beanie & skinny scarf. They are both double crochet - the hat has 2 rounds of mesh, then a round of single crochet at the opening.